Feelings
by Sparks
Summary: Several years after he has left Hogwarts, Harry feels and reveals in a different location. *Complete*


Author's Notes: Harry feels and reveals. None of it is mine. This is a one-off unless I get lots of requests for background, since I'm currently hard at work on 'Dragon Mage'.  
  
****************************************************************  
  
"Have you ever had that feeling where you're not quite sure whether you're awake or asleep? No, don't answer, it was a rhetorical question - a quote from a Muggle film, actually. I was raised as a Muggle, surely you knew that? I thought the whole world knows what I eat for breakfast these days.  
  
What kind of a question is that? 'Don't I think that statement is a bit egoistical?' No, as it happens, I don't. They do occasionally let me read the newspaper in here you know. I'm not stupid - besides, it's been that way since I started at Hogwarts. No, I don't want to talk about Hogwarts...you're not going to let up, are you? Oh well, if I must I must. So what do you want to know?  
  
You know who my best friends were, I've already told you a million times. Honestly, you must think I have amnesia or something - or maybe *you* do. Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. They're married now, aren't they? I heard that Ron even invited Draco as a 'sorry' gesture - or maybe it was more because of me.  
  
'Why shouldn't he invite Draco?' Why should he invite Draco, more like. We were enemies at Hogwarts, remember? Draco Malfoy against the Dream Team.  
  
Have you ever seen a basilisk? I have. I killed it in my second year.  
  
No, I happen to like changing the subject rapidly. It's always been one of my strange personality quirks - Sirius used to say that I got it from my mother, because Dad was like glue when he got interested in something. He said that, anyway. I don't know if it was true.  
  
Why do you ask that? Of course I don't trust Sirius anymore. I trust none of them.except maybe Draco. He's the only one who hasn't visited me in this prison. Yes, it's a prison. It's not like I can just walk out of here, is it? Of course. Try to feed me the official line of how I have to get better first.  
  
I'm not crazy. I haven't ever been crazy - you should look to my grandfather for that. Oh, didn't I mention that before? Of course not, everyone keeps on telling me to keep quiet about it, that it shouldn't be known. Then of course they stuck me in here. Except Draco, he didn't.  
  
If you wanted to talk about Draco, why didn't you just say so instead of dancing around the subject? Draco Malfoy.I'm actually richer than the Malfoys, did you know that? No, I didn't think so. It's one of the few facts about me that aren't generally known - make sure you don't tell that reporter about it, please? I do like to have some secrets. Before you ask, no, I won't reveal the others. Some things you don't tell anybody. Actually, I don't have any secrets from Draco, and he doesn't have any from me. Or he didn't, before the rest of them shoved me in here.  
  
Yes, I'm purposefully distracting you from Draco. Why would I want to talk about him? I'll talk about...hmm...ah yes, an nice innocuous subject: Divination.  
  
Do you know Professor Trelawny? Thank God, she's a complete fake. She was never happy unless I predicted my own death every lesson and homework - and if I didn't, she'd always predict it for me. Me, Ron and Hermione together used to despise her - then Hermione stormed out of the lesson. I don't think any of us have ever been more shocked - oh no, there was that time in the very last Potions lesson of our sixth year when Snape said something about my parents, and she dumped a freezing potion over his head. She only got away without a detention because he was frozen. Well, a freezing potion tends to do that to a person, doesn't it? Personally, I would have used a shrinking potion, but then again I never really had the guts to do something like that to Snape. Yell at him, yes, try to hex him, of course.  
  
But I never managed to dump a potion over his head. Oh, that was a fantastic day. Followed, of course, by several miserable weeks.  
  
How have you managed to get me back onto this track? If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times: I do not want to talk about Voldemort.  
  
Oh, I forgot. You lot want me to start calling him you-know-who or He-who- must-not-be-named, right? To help me forget the trauma?  
  
I have never been through anything that I would call traumatising. Of course, my standards are somewhat different to everyone else's.  
  
Have you ever encountered a Dementor? Lucky you. Let me tell you a little about them. They are generally fairly tall - taller than me, at any rate. They wear long black cloaks, a little tattered maybe. Their skin...mottled grey, slimy. It's worse when you touch it. You know what a Dementor does, right? Sucks all the happiness right out of you. Takes away all your happy memories, given time. Makes you go mad eventually - usually after not very long. Sirius is one of the very few to have escaped that fate. But when you touch their skin...it multiplies. All your happy memories being flooding out of you, feeding them, and the longer you hold on the faster they go, until you're feeding the Dementor any memories, all memories, just to get it off you.  
  
Unless you pull away.  
  
I learnt how to defend myself against them in my third year at Hogwarts. Expecto Patronum. Before I do that spell, I can hear my Mum and Dad, fighting Voldemort. It's the only time I have ever heard their voices.  
  
You think that's trauma? No. It was comforting, in a way - and that is not a sign of madness. In fact, Remus Lupin told me that it was perfectly normal for me to react like that, considering the darkness in my past.  
  
Darkness in my past. Hmm. He must have known. Well, I guess I knew that already - that he knew, I mean. For the last time, I will not tell you what this secret is!  
  
The Sorting Hat wanted to put me in Slytherin - it must have known too. Clever thing, that Sorting Hat - do you remember it at all? I assume you went to Hogwarts. What house - ah. Hufflepuff. I might have guessed, considering your occupation. I killed a Hufflepuff once. Cedric Diggory - only they told me that I didn't. I didn't say the words, I suppose - but I am responsible for his death, nonetheless.  
  
Oh. Oh. You didn't just say what I thought you said did you? You.you think that it might be possible that I have homicidal tendencies. Oh.oh, that's too hilarious for words. Bloody hell, if I was homicidal wouldn't you be dead? No, I'm not homicidal. I never have been - well, except for perhaps Voldemort. Ah, but of course, that doesn't count, does it? Everyone is allowed to hate and fear Voldemort - just so long as they don't go and join him, right? Fantastic Ministry we wizards have, isn't it? They can lock an innocent man in Azkaban. They can turn on their 'saviour' like a pack of wolves. They can even let a nutcase be headmaster at Hogwarts - but they can't say a name, or admit when someone made a mistake but has repented of that mistake.  
  
Yes of course I'm talking about Snape. But I don't feel like talking any more. Has Draco asked to see me recently? Ah, I thought not. Am I allowed to write a letter to him? That's changed - I'll need quill and parchment then. Oh of course. 'Nothing allowed in the bedrooms that could be used as a weapon of any sort'. Can I have a Muggle pen then? Bloody hell, what's the point in finally being allowed to write a letter if you won't let me have the things to write one with?  
  
Oh all right. Yes, Draco and I were lovers. Yes, I do love him. Much good it's done either of us. And Voldemort? You really want to know the truth - you really want to know why they shoved me in here? Alright - come closer, it wouldn't do for your surveillance spells to pick this up.  
  
Voldemort is my grandfather. James Potter's father. Of course, he never knew that. I didn't know that until Voldemort told me in my sixth year. But everyone knew - Dumbledore, Sirius, Remus, the Weasleys - everyone that I had trusted to be honest with me. Snape didn't know, neither did Draco. Ron and Hermione neither, but they sided with Dumbledore about it when I told them. I should keep it quiet, not tell anyone - after all, people might get the wrong idea.  
  
Snape snorted when I let it slip, and said he'd almost figured it out from things that had been happening. I look like Voldemort used to, you know - back when he was still Tom Riddle.  
  
Draco.Draco kissed the hurt better.  
  
But Draco hasn't come. Perhaps he really believes that I'm mad. And so do you now, don't you? You think they were right to put me in here, that I'm completely loony. But I'm not.  
  
Hang on, someone's coming - haven't you heard all that noise? I suppose I have good hearing then. Turn around, Doctor. Look out of the door for me, will you? See who it is?  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
I thought it might be you.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
Are you here for me? Good. I was getting a bit fed up of staying cooped up in here. No, I'm not going to join you, blood relative or not. I'm too...secure in my own beliefs to join you, grandfather. Are you going to make me stay here because of that? Thank you.  
  
Ah, clothes. You have no idea how irritating white can be when you have to wear it day in, day out - or perhaps you do? You certainly seem to wear nothing but black now.  
  
I'll taunt you however much I please. I'm crazy, remember? Got to live up to my reputation.  
  
I will see you again, no doubt. On the battlefield, or off, who knows? Well, you might know, you always have some sort of scheme planned. Thank you for this - for breaking me free.  
  
I still despise you. I agree completely, it would be best if we never get into the whole familial relationship thing. See you around, grandfather." 


End file.
